ATC for Martha Meets the Captain
by Upeasterner
Summary: The party's over but the fun's just getting started on the drive to the airport.


"How long?" Martha asked as the station wagon pulled away from Gull Cottage.

"I suppose this is why you didn't ask Ed to drive you to the airport." Carolyn squared her shoulders and tightened her fingers around the steering wheel.

"Can't we just all be happy this one day? You met the Captain, he arranged for you to stay with us and Ed looked like he was ready to propose. And the kids, Martha –"

"How long?" Martha looked out the passenger window, gripping her handbag tightly in her lap. "We'll be at the airport in 30 minutes, Mrs. Muir. I don't want to spend a three-hour flight speculating about things that went on right under my nose. Very strange things."

Carolyn sighed in surrender.

"Since that psychiatrist tried to convince me that Daniel was a figment of my imagination. That's how long. That's when the, oh affair I suppose you want to call it, the affair, began. Martha, don't you have anything else to worry about? Like, 'gee Carolyn, it's really neat to know there is life after death.' I would imagine this brings a completely new perspective on your weekly Bible study classes at the church."

"No, it gives me a whole new idea why everyone in town wants to know why on earth that pretty little Mrs. Muir locks herself up in that strange little house on Gregg Road with 'you-know-who.' To think I've defended you and pooh-pooh'd the idea."

"Martha, certainly you're not going to tell anyone about this. It would ruin my –"

"Privacy?" Martha rolled her eyes. "I think you've had way too much of that, getting away with whatever it is you and the Captain have been up to these last two years."

"If you were anyone else, Martha –"

"But I'm not, dear. I've worried about you ever since the day your mother hired me and I caught you climbing up the tree, back into the house with hickies on your neck. Sixteen I think you were. Just a wild slip of a girl."

Martha chuckled, and glanced, furtively, at Carolyn's neck. "There aren't any now, are there?"

"Martha Grant! I'm not a teenager anymore. Or Bobby's wife. I can do whatever I want with – oh, blast! – he's not just anyone. I love him. The kids love him. He takes care of us, and treats me like the lady you always said I was."

"And?"

"Yes, we can. We do. But it's not just about that, it's so much more."

"Then I can plan on a wedding soon after I return? Just a secret one, like the little surprise party you planned for me!"

Carolyn pulled into the airport and over to the curb to let Martha out. She fumed, blowing her bangs upward in frustration.

"For the kid's sake, I'm sure?" she glared childishly at her housekeeper.

"No, Carolyn. For yours. I want to make sure you are loved and cherished this time."

They each got out of the car. Carolyn pulled Martha's suitcase from the trunk and gave Martha the biggest hug she could, considering the woman's ample girth.

"Oh," Martha remembered, patting distractedly at her coat pockets. "The ghost, Captain, Daniel, whatever you call him – asked me to give you this before I got on the plane. Why I almost forgot."

Carolyn gasped.

"I know, he says this isn't the most romantic way to propose, but he wanted to make me feel like an important part of this family again. So he asked me for your hand in marriage and suggested you try this on for the ride home. Ed took the kids back into town to stay with friends."

"Why Martha, you –"

"Child, you are not getting off that lightly. You drive right back to Gull Cottage and explain to him there's to be no hanky panky before the wedding. None. I'll be back in a week and we'll take it from there."

"How on earth did you two have time to come to these weighty conclusions in the brief hour since you met?" Carolyn nervously twisted the enormous pink diamond now glittering from her ring finger.

"Oh, he conveniently stopped time. While I glared at your happy frozen face the Captain explained a few things to me, and I had a few words with him. Once he made everything clear, it appeared we did agree on one very important thing. Now you be careful driving home, hear?"

At 25,000 feet Martha asked the stewardess for a Scotch. Somewhere over South Carolina she shook silently with laughter at the thought of Carolyn and the Captain keeping their hands off one another long enough to plan a wedding. Carolyn, she knew, would never break a promise like that.

She reached into her pocketbook for a hanky to dab at the tears threatening to ruin the mascara she'd applied for the first time in years. And there it was, a somewhat smaller sparkler, an antique one. Attached to the ring by string was a note penned in Ed's hardscrabble Yankee handwriting.

"Martha, please put this ring on. I want to marry you when you get back. Show this to Evelyn and tell her I can't live without your cherry pies."


End file.
